Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

Freyr leaned back in his chair and looked at the messy files, which didn’t come anywhere near providing him with a better insight into how Halla was connected with the disappearance of his son. If anything, they’d confused him even more. Maybe the explanation was simply that there was no explanation. For the moment it was difficult to conclude otherwise. All the same, he didn’t have to give up immediately. This would haunt him like a nightmare if he stopped now, no matter how little hope he had of finding an explanation. He noticed that it was too late to call Dagný. It was possible that she had further information about the case, and just as likely that she hadn’t let him have all the files. She also had the original version of the class photo, where the names of the students could be found. He decided to send her an e-mail, which would be waiting for her the next morning.

As he turned on his computer the door of the office creaked loudly and he looked up. The door opened slowly, as if the visitor had his arms full and were pushing it open with his shoulder. But before it opened wide enough for someone to step through the gap, the door stopped.

‘Hello.’ Freyr sat motionless. ‘Who is it?’

No answer. Only the clicking sound of a defective fluorescent bulb out in the corridor. ‘Hello?’

Freyr stood up, annoyed, and opened the door. There was no one there. He looked down the corridor. Nothing. He probably hadn’t shut the door properly earlier. He shrugged and shut it behind him, but pulled the knob hard to be certain that the latch fell into place. Then he sat back down at his computer and opened his e-mail. Waiting for him was a message from a colleague of his at the National Hospital. The subject of the message was the name Halla, so Freyr opened the e-mail, doubting whether anything could surprise him in this matter. The message turned out to be quite down to earth compared to everything else. The sender was a doctor at the Research Clinic in Pathology, the man responsible for performing the autopsy on Halla. He wanted Freyr to let him know where he should send the report on the woman’s condition, and asked at the end of the message to be sent information on any psychiatric drugs and other medication that Halla had been taking as quickly as possible, as if he assumed that the woman had been undergoing treatment for mental illness. He went on to ask whether Freyr would also compile a general medical history on the woman, especially concerning the formation of scars on her back. Freyr raised his eyebrows, reached for the medical files and flipped quickly through them in search of information on injuries that might have left behind these scars, in case he’d overlooked it. He hadn’t. No accidents, illnesses, or anything else suggested such a thing. Freyr replied to the message, informing the doctor that he had the files and would be quick in compiling the information. He then added, after brief deliberation, that he would probably ring him tomorrow morning. It would be easiest to speak to the man directly about the scars, as well as to let him know that Halla hadn’t been taking any medication except for high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Before closing his e-mail program he opened another message, this one from Sara. His first reaction had been to leave it unread until tomorrow morning, but he decided it was better to get unwelcome news out of the way. He regretted it as soon as he read the short text. Sara was still stuck in the same rut, asking him to call her since she didn’t want to bother him at work again. She desperately needed to talk to him, since she had the feeling that Benni was planning to go after him and she wanted to prepare him for the experience. Freyr sighed. From time to time Sara had said she’d seen and heard Benni, and of all the nonsense that had taken place he found these hallucinations of hers the most difficult to deal with. His patients were one thing and he could deal with their problems; it was another thing altogether when his ex-wife displayed the same behaviour. He closed the message, determined to call her neither tonight nor tomorrow. Over the course of the week Sara would forget about these delusions, and they would be replaced by others that he would be better equipped to deal with.

Freyr started slightly when a click suggested that someone had grabbed the doorknob. Again the door opened as slowly as before, and stopped once there was a small gap. The fluorescent bulb could he heard clicking once more, now with apparently greater frequency.

‘Hello?’ Freyr leaned over the desk to try to see through the gap. There was nothing but the blinking of the faulty ceiling light. ‘Hello?’ A chill passed over him when a familiar voice whispered in response to his call. A voice that had always been lively, contented and joyful, but that now sounded cold and lifeless. A voice that seemed so near, yet at the same time so infinitely far away.

‘Daddy.’

There seemed to be no end to the sleet. Through the bedroom window on the second floor they’d watched the storm move in north from the sea. It appeared like a black, vertical curtain, against which the feeble moonlight was powerless. Just before the sleet hit the house, it was as if a blind were being pulled down over the little light coming from outside, and it took their eyes several moments to become accustomed to the near total darkness. Now, apart from each other’s outlines, they could see only the window and the storm pounding it. Although in fact they were lying so close together that none of them needed to wonder where the other two were. Which was good.

‘I’ll never be able to sleep,’ Líf muttered through a thick sleeping bag that she’d pulled up over her head. ‘Why did we come here?’

Katrín didn’t answer, since there was little to be gained from reminding Líf that it was she and Garðar who were responsible for this nonsense. He was silent too, but she hoped that wasn’t a sign he was asleep. It was only fair for him to be the last to enter dreamland; even if he was troubled by the events of the evening, they’d affected Katrín and Líf more. She nudged him with her elbow and was relieved when he winced. So he was awake. The sleet hammered the windowpanes even more forcefully and the draughty window let in a cold gust of wind. ‘Does anyone know whether the radiator is still warm?’ Katrín asked, though there was only one answer she wanted to hear: that it was still boiling hot and that the firewood in the stove would last all night. There was no way any of them would be persuaded to go down to stoke it. Though she did seem to be the best off: Putti had lain down on her feet, making her toes quite warm.

‘I think so.’ Garðar’s voice was uncomfortably sleepy. ‘But that’ll hardly last much longer.’

‘Then we’ll just freeze. I’d rather freeze to death than be stabbed by some crazy child wandering around the countryside here for God knows what sort of crappy reason.’ Líf stuck her head out of the sleeping bag to make her opinion on this situation absolutely clear. ‘The locks on the doors are useless.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with the locks, either on the front or the back door. No one’s getting in here unless they force them open.’ Garðar didn’t sound particularly convincing. However, there was more determination in his voice when he went on: ‘And that strange child isn’t going to turn up here. I don’t know where the hell he went, but if he didn’t go into one of the houses then I’d say he’s on the verge of perishing in the storm.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Katrín hadn’t yet been able to form an opinion about the child’s presence in this deserted place, but she hoped that he was in the company of adults. Although she’d only seen him from a distance, and for a short time, she knew children well enough from teaching them to realize that this particular one wasn’t in his right mind. The thought that a mentally ill child had somehow made his way to the abandoned village, and was now out wandering alone in the storm, was deeply disturbing. ‘Is there definitely no point in searching for him?’